Global financial intermediation in one graphic

Andrew Haldane says that "interest rates are now lower than at any time in the past 5000 years". The graphic below is truly stunning.

And on a more immediate, quarter century basis, the 10-year global real interest rates have dipped spectacularly since the mid-nineties.

Haldane attributes this trend in interest rates to excess savings in the East, deficient investment in the West, worsening demographic trends, and rising inequality.